


i’d never fall for you at all

by trite



Series: a view that's tailor-made for two [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27875157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trite/pseuds/trite
Summary: “You look nice,” Dameron said, looking firmly into Hux’s eyes, before their date.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Series: a view that's tailor-made for two [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043919
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	i’d never fall for you at all

**Author's Note:**

> Part two out of _six_ of Fluff Without Plot. Don't look at me.

“You look nice,” Dameron said, looking firmly into Hux’s eyes, before their date. (The second one. And Hux was already appending ‘so far’ in his mind, which couldn’t be good.)

He wasn’t exactly what Hux had expected. Or more accurately, _dating_ him wasn’t exactly what Hux had expected. There weren’t actually a lot of differences between their interactions now and before.

“Thanks. You as well.”

Dameron laughed. “That sounded very convincing. We’ll work on that.” He patted Hux’s arm once and turned to open the door to the restaurant. It had been the most physical contact they had had since they started — this.

Hux should have known exactly what to expect from the evening as soon as they walked inside. The place was trying very hard to be authentic for the comfortably settled citizens of Coruscant. Which Hux supposed included him now. He looked around at the fake wood decorating the walls, the bar, the tables, the _ceiling_. He felt embarrassed to have even walked inside. To make matters worse, the seats were shaped like barrels.

They were led to a table in front of a large window, its edges covered in more fake wood, the glittering light streaming from the lightpoles outside falling across their table.

Despite the unfortunate setting, Dameron remained easy to talk to and easy to be around. It was a carefully calibrated act based on pretending, though, and a mutual effort was required to maintain it. Halfway through their meal, Dameron decided to veer off-script.

“Why did you— when you started — helping us, what pushed you to do it?” Dameron asked, looking honest and curious, his expression not betraying his conversational traps.

Hux tensed. “This doesn’t seem conversation suited for a date. It certainly lacks a romantic component.” Hux had been _pardoned_ (with conditions, but pardoned nonetheless) by the same government Dameron supported, believed in, and had helped rebuild. He had, perhaps naïvely, thought that that meant he wouldn’t have to keep defending himself. After all, none of it was defensible.

His lawyer had assured him, over and over again, that his pardon couldn’t be revoked and he had spent enough time reading the laws and policies of the new galactic government to know it was true. He still had the niggling worry that Dameron was a double agent. He was working to get Hux unpardoned, testing him and reporting back on all the ways Hux was undeserving. It helped to explain his interest and it would be almost funny if Hux’s undoing was someone spying on him and feeding information to his enemy.

“It’s part of getting to know you. I don’t think— I mean, I know what you told Finn that day, but was that it?”

“Yes, I wanted to see him fail and I am glad I lived to see it.” It wasn’t the only thing Hux was thankful to have gotten to see and experience since then, but he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable toward Dameron at the moment, so he refrained from sharing.

Dameron looked at him for an uncomfortably intense moment, searching for something he was definitely not going to find in Hux. “So it was just revenge? You did it out of spite, nothing more?”

Hux felt irrationally betrayed that Dameron would do this. That he would lull Hux into a false sense of security and then ambush him. “You don’t understand how— he ruined all my plans. Everything I had spent a lifetime building. He took everything—”

Dameron scoffed. “You are unbelievable. Kriff, in your mind you would prefer to have me call you Emperor Hux, wouldn’t you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with having ambition.”

“There’s something wrong with baselessly believing yourself qualified to rule over the entire galaxy. I cannot believe you.” Dameron turned to look at the bar and Hux made himself look away from his profile, from the hollow of his throat, from his fingers rhythmically tracing the surface of the table.

“No, you can’t believe yourself. This is only upsetting to you because it bothers you how it reflects on you and what it says about you.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He turned back and fixed his gaze on Hux, open and _sincere_ and it took Hux aback. He felt something within him respond, want to give back. It was futile, though. He had nothing to give Dameron.

He looked out of the window; the lights from the streets bathing everyone outside in a soft golden glow. It was an inviting scene and that’s where Hux’s urge to stand up and leave came from.

The rest of the evening passed in an uncomfortable, uneasy silence, and Hux was surprised when the end of their meal came accompanied not by a weight lifting off of him, but viciously sinking him down.

Dameron insisted on prolonging and possibly increasing the awkwardness by offering to walk Hux back. It felt like something to quickly reach for before it slipped away. Turning to look at the starry sky above them, Hux said, “I wasn’t lying. I did want to see him fail and he did take something for me. He—”

Dameron sighed. “I know this. I heard it already. It’s fine. I don’t—”

“No, it’s not that. I lost the way I saw— I realized I wasn’t as smart or as good as I thought I was.” Hux looked away. Saying the words made the burning feeling in his chest brand new. “What I had believed about myself. The self-assurance I got from the knowledge that I was better, and as such I knew better was stripped from me. I realized that I couldn’t do it on my own. All the time I spent thinking I could, I was trading in self-delusion. I came to the horrifying and embarrassing realization that I had to ask for help. I can’t properly convey how monumental that felt and you wouldn’t be able to relate in any case.”

Dameron moved closer to let a couple walk by them and it briefly brought the bodies into contact. He turned to look at Hux and the blinding lights from the store displays flickered alongside his gaze. “I know what it’s like to think you’re too good to fail and have to come to terms with the fact you're not.”

He couldn’t possibly find comprehension with Dameron, couldn’t allow him to encourage that illusion. “I am aware that there were more noble reasons for doing what I did, but I don’t regret it.”

“Do you wish some of it had gone differently?”

Hux swallowed. He couldn’t say he longed for a reality that would have most certainly ended with Dameron dead, not when they were almost getting the comfortable feeling back. “I suppose I—”

“No, don’t. Don’t answer that. Forget I asked.” Dameron said hurriedly, moving his hand in front of Hux, as if to physically pull him back from saying the words.

Hux caught his wrist mid-motion and held on. He changed his grip until they were properly holding hands. Hux stared at their joined hands for a moment, before releasing him and clasping his own hands behind his back.

“Whatever regrets I might have, I’m glad I’m alive to have them,” Hux finally said.

“Hey, you’re welcome,” he said with a small, pleased smile.

“And I am glad he’s dead.” That was an absolute truth that no amount of government-mandated counseling would change. “I don’t share your belief that everyone deserves to be given the opportunity to be and do better.”

“That’s hypocritical of you. You have benefitted from it.”

Hux turned his gaze toward the dim light from the lightpoles that glittered in the darkness. “I still am, aren’t I?”

Dameron looked away but didn’t bring the distance between them back.


End file.
